ACCA national conference on sustainable leadership

The ACCA National Conference next month will see top local and international speakers dealing with sustainable leadership, a vital component to the continuance and development of a focused people and innovative nation.

On the theme, ‘Open Minds – Sustainable Leadership’, ACCA Sri Lanka’s galaxy of high profile speakers include a keynote address delivered by Professor Leo Murray, Professor of Cranfield School of Management and former Director of Rothmans International Tobacco Plc, with the technical sessions led by Tushara Canekeratne, the co-founder of Virtusa Corporation and Executive Vice President of Global Technical Operations since Virtusa’s inception, K. Gopalan, founder and Executive Chairman of Top Performers Learning & Consulting Sdn. Bhd., a training and consulting firm, Shabbir Merchant Executive Vice President, Consulting Services & CEO – International Business at Grow Talent India and Ismail Radwan, senior economist based in the World Bank's South Asia Finance and Private Sector Unit.

The presenters are billed to analyse and chart courses that would help Sri Lankan business leaders in both the private, public and non-profit sectors create an environment of sustainable leadership, harnessing talent, passion, creativity and innovation among their people to engage in creative leadership for innovation and sustainable growth.

The topics to be dealt with are the passion to execute, transformational leadership, talent portfolio management and ethical leadership, a ACCA press release said.

The first technical paper presented by Tushara Canakeratne deals with dreaming the impossible, envisioning the challenge and executing a strategy with commitment and sincerity to make things happen, while the fact that leaders need to challenge the status quo and to create a sense of urgency across the organisation to constantly embrace change is discussed by K Gopalan in the second technical paper. Shabbir Merchant, in the third technical paper will study retention and talent building among people within an organisation, while involving them more in strategy and sharing of rewards. The final paper presented by Ismail Radwan highlights the need for ethical thinking in behaviour, where successful leaders have been proven to have won the trust of their people and build empires using ‘ethical charisma’.